


Remember Me for Centuries

by SpraceJunkie



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: I almost tagged Romeo as Romeo Montague as a joke for people who read this but i didn't, Immortality, M/M, also I almost made thisa soulmate au but then decided to just leave it bc so there, everyone other than Jack and Davey are only mentioned, i'm big gay so there's that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 19:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19302343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpraceJunkie/pseuds/SpraceJunkie
Summary: He hadn’t picked a new last name yet, but he was planning on going somewhere to take a long, long, long nap someplace where nobody would find him until he wanted them to, so he didn’t really need one yet.The last time he’d done this, faked his own death, he hadn’t stuck around. He’d been gone as soon as it was done.This time, he couldn’t bear to go. He stayed until his own funeral.He saw Davey sitting ramrod straight in the front row, his eyes red and puffy from tears. He saw Davey, the only real connection he had in the world, barely and not quite holding back tears while an empty casket was lowered into the ground.And then he disappeared.Found a cave, slept for what ended up being thirty-nine years, and started living pieces of lives here and there. A couple years in Detroit working in a factory. A couple years on a farm in Iowa. A couple years in San Francisco as an artist who never got very successful.





	Remember Me for Centuries

The first time they met, it was a party. A big, bright, awe-inspiring party with lights reflecting across the water and diamonds dangling from the ceiling, glasses of alcohol everybody would deny in the morning and brief flirtations that would never quite be forgotten.

The type of party that would be written down by an author and studied by high school students every year for decades.

Obviously, Jack had thrown it.

The bootlegging business was nothing if not profitable, and Jack was nothing if not a big name in the bootlegging business. And parties like this were a definite perk of being a big name in the bootlegging business.

It wasn’t even his house, he’d simply convinced his friends who owned it to let him host while they were away on business.

After all, they were in California, what did they need with this big house on the big lake with the big pools for one weekend? And I’ll make sure everything got cleaned up, and no, you don’t have to pay for anything, I’ve got it covered.

And it was an awesome party.

At least forty people had already come up to him to tell him so.

A few women had come up to him and latched onto his arm, giving him bedroom eyes, and a few men had given him the same expression from a few feet further away. Normally, he would have been happy to accept any one of their approaches.

This party was full of beautiful people. Most of them were even nice beautiful people, the kind of people Jack would have been happy to wake up with in the morning.

Except, tonight he’d seen somebody from across the entire party he couldn’t get out of his head.

He’d been standing by the dock when Jack had first seen him. The blazing lights from the house made an almost identical scene on the still water of the lake, and right on the border of that mirrored world was a man Jack had never seen before.

He was dressed like anyone else, in what was probably his best suit, and he was standing looking out at the water, leaning against a tree. He’d ditched the suit coat at some point, and it was mostly his body language that caught Jack’s eye. It was like he was disinterested in everything around him, but not in a bored way, in a way that said he’d seen parties better than this, even if this one was fun.

And then he turned around and Jack felt his breath catch in his throat. Maybe it was just the lighting, he was easily the most beautiful man at the party. The most beautiful man Jack had ever seen, even.

The lights made it look like he had a streak of bright white hair on the top of his head, and the shadows cast across his face only made his strong jawline and nose more striking.

The image instantly had Jack’s fingers itching for something to draw him with. Charcoal maybe, since the whole reason it was such a striking scene was the contrast, the bright light against the dark shadows.

He lost track of the man after turning away for a second when somebody new had grabbed his arm and drawn him into a conversation. When he looked back to the dock, he was gone, disappeared into the crowd somewhere where Jack couldn’t see him.

It took him a couple of hours to find him again, this time in a conversation with a group of people Jack knew by sight but not by name.

“Enjoying the party, ladies, gentlemen?” Jack said easily, slipping into the little circle directly across from the man he’d never seen before.

And god, in this light, without any shadows obscuring his face, he was even more beautiful. Literally breathtaking. Easily the most beautiful person Jack had seen in years.

The man smiled at Jack across the circle, and Jack had to swallow hard before speaking again.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Jack extended his hand.

“Davey. Davey Jacobs.” Davey Jacobs, the most beautiful man in the world, shook Jack’s hand firmly and Jack could have sworn literal sparks flew between them.

“Jack Kelly.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Was he imagining it, or did Davey Jacobs hold the handshake just a little bit longer than most people would have?

“Glad to know my name gets around.”

His eyes were a beautiful shade of dark brown, and Jack never wanted to look away from them. He wanted to stare into them forever and ever and get lost in them.

The other people who had been talking to Davey had melted away into the rest of the crowd, leaving just the two of them.

“I am at your party.”

“I guarantee there are people here who have no idea whose party this is.” Jack smiled again, and Davey laughed.

“Well, I know. It’s nice to meet the man paying for the fun I’m having.”

“So you are enjoying yourself?”

“Obviously.”

“Have you seen the back garden yet?”

“I haven’t, no.”

“Oh, it’s beautiful. Not that I can take any credit for it, but it’s wonderful. You should see it.”

“You’d have to show me to them.”

“Well, then, right this way.”

Jack gestured for Davey to follow him and started to walk towards the back gardens.

The back gardens were beautiful, when they were visible. This late at night, it wasn’t as obvious. They were more private, though, and while Jack was sure there were couples back here taking advantage of the shadowy paths and benches set away from them, he couldn’t see any people.

Davey walked next to him so close their elbows brushed. Jack felt like a little kid with a crush with how many butterflies were filling his stomach.

Back here, most of the light came from the moon. A good portion of the garden was blocked off by a row of tall bushes and a few trees, keeping the bright lights from inside from pouring in. Jack paused by a bench almost in the middle of the garden.

“It’s beautiful back here,” Davey said, sitting down and looking up at the sky.

“It sure is.”

Davey studied the stars, and Jack studied Davey.

Jack was almost positive he was literally the most beautiful man in the world. He looked like a Greek god with the moonlight spilling over his face as he tilted his head back. Jack really wanted to draw him, maybe paint him, he wished he could sculpt him.

Jack sat down next to him close enough to let their shoulders brush and looked up. The stars were bright tonight, and normally Jack could have looked up and studied them for a long time. Right now, he kept looking over at Davey.

“You know we’re in public, right?” Davey said quietly, without looking away from the sky. A tiny smile ghosted across his face.

“And? It’s my party and I supply everyone here with most of their alcohol. Who’d say anything?”

That was an encouraging thing to hear. At least he was acknowledging that Jack was trying to flirt with him.

“Anyone could.”

“But nobody will.”

Davey looked over at Jack, his smile a little bit wider now.

“You trust everyone here?”

“I don’t trust anyone here. If they got arrested, they’d sell me out in a second.”

“Seems like you’re presenting two very different viewpoints here, Mr. Kelly.”

“Not at all. I don’t trust them, but they wouldn’t ever report me themselves. They’d lose their booze.”

Davey turned to face Jack more full on. His eyes dropped slightly down to Jack’s mouth and his smile grew a little bit more. Jack leaned forward a little bit, his breath catching when Davey mirrored his action.

And then they met in the middle.

And Jack woke up next to Davey in the morning.

In the sunlight, he was somehow even more beautiful, and now Jack could find something to draw him with.

He was tangled in the sheets, taking up most of the bed, still sleeping. He looked peaceful and innocent and not at all like he’d spent the night with a man he’d met the night before.

“What are you doing?” Davey woke up and propped his head up on his hands, smiling at Jack.

“Capturing the moment.” Jack paused in his sketch to smile back at him.

God, he was as close to perfect as anyone Jack had ever met.

“I didn’t know you were an artist.”

“It’s just a hobby,” Jack said. “Cheaper than hiring a photographer.” He added the last few details and flipped the paper around to show Davey.

“Not terrible,” Davey said, laughing. “But it doesn’t exactly look like me.”

“Sure it does.”

“Looks more like a movie star than me.”

“That’s what you look like, darling. The most beautiful person in the room.” Jack set his paper and pencil aside and leaned back down to kiss Davey again.

“Oh, I’m your darling now?”

“You were my darling the second I saw you last night,” Jack whispered against Davey’s mouth.

“Mm. That’s creepy.”

Jack laughed and pulled back. Davey was also laughing, his eyes sparkling.

“Sometimes you just know something is destiny.”

“And I am?”

“We are.”

Davey reached up to lightly touch Jack’s cheek.

“That’s a very dramatic thing to say after knowing each other for one night.”

“I’m a very dramatic person, dearest.”

Davey laughed at the pet name.

“You’re all in after ten hours, huh?”

“You know it, honey.” Jack grinned and caught Davey’s hand, kissing his fingers. “Let’s get married.”

“I don’t really think that’s possible, you know.”

“Maybe not legally. But who are we to follow the law? I’ve certainly broken quite a few before, you know.”

Davey laughed again, and Jack promptly decided that he wanted to hear the sound as many times as he possibly could.

Oh, Jack was already so far gone on him and it really had only been ten hours.

“A summer wedding would be nice,” Davey said thoughtfully. “Especially here.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Jack mused, shifting his position so he was lying on his side facing Davey, who’d never really sat up. “A few close friends down by the dock. Declarations of eternal love. It’ll be very dramatic and romantic.”

“Eternal love is a little extreme, isn’t it?”

“Maybe, but isn’t that the point of marriage?”

“I guess it is.”

They were both joking. Obviously, they were both joking.

But also Jack was completely serious. If Davey wanted to go stand by the lake and say some sappy words and call themselves married, Jack would be there in his fanciest outfit in a second.

“So when’s the wedding happening?” Davey said softly, touching Jack’s face again. “I’m all in if you are.”

“For real?”

“I like you, Jack Kelly. If I were a braver man I’d say I love you, even. Sometimes you just know when something is destiny,” Davey smiled as he said the exact same thing Jack had said two minutes before.

Maybe they weren’t both joking.

Jack had one some crazy things in his lifetime. A lot of crazy things. Most recently a lot of crazy things involving smuggling alcohol, collapsing shelves, and very fast cars.

But getting married after knowing somebody for one night probably took the cake. Even if it wasn’t a marriage that would ever be legally recognized, it was still a crazy idea.

But it didn’t matter how crazy it was. He was ready to do it, and so was Davey, and so they did.

They each had a few friends who were still hanging around after the party who stood by the dock with them and rolled their eyes and laughed at their ridiculous, over-complicated, wordy declarations of eternal love that everyone there knew was coming after not even a full twenty-four hours of acquaintance.

He’d been expecting it to fizzle out like every other relationship he’d ever had. For Davey to stay around for a little while and end up going his own way.

He didn’t expect to fall more in love every time he woke up next to Davey. To realize three months into it that he didn’t know what he’d do if he woke up without Davey the next day. To notice that the highlight of his day was almost always sitting down to eat with Davey or kissing him hello after getting home or simply sitting close together after a long day while Davey read and Jack drew.

Jack was a bootlegger. He worked late nights and dangerous days and was at constant risk of being arrested if any of the authorities caught onto him. Well, most of the authorities. Some didn’t care, but that was beside the point. He could lose everything in a heartbeat, and so nothing in his life was stable.

Except for Davey.

Jack went out rum running. Jack dealt with shady people. Jack broke the law in a million different ways. Jack’s life was insane.

And Davey was always there when he got home. Whether that was at midnight or noon or four in the morning or six at night, Davey was waiting when Jack got home. He was a writer, always writing, often curled up in the window seat writing the next great American novel when Jack got home. Davey was always there to laugh at Jack’s bad jokes and kiss him sweetly goodnight or good morning and dance with him in the kitchen to jazz records while dinner was cooking. Davey was sweet and kind and smart and Jack’s common sense.

He was steady and dependable and Jack’s anchor in his crazy life.

And after three years, Jack was still absolutely positive that deciding to call Davey his husband after ten hours of a relationship, most of which had been sleeping, was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Getting to fall asleep next to him and wake up next to him and kiss him and love him was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“I love you, Jacky.”

That was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“I love you too, Davey.” Jack wrapped his arms around Davey and pulled him closer under the blankets on their bed, pressing their foreheads together.

Sunlight was streaming in through the windows, reminding Jack of the first time they’d woken up together.

Davey’s eyes were closed, he had a small, happy smile on his face, they were warm and comfortable and in love and every detail made the thoughts lurking in the back of Jack’s mind hurt more.

The things he hadn’t told Davey. The things he knew he had to do. The things he’d been ignoring for three years because of how in love he was. The plans he’d made that he knew he had to go through with.

Because he’d been here too long.

He’d started getting the scariest types of compliments recently. About how young he looked. How he hadn’t changed a bit. Questions about how he looked so young.

Things that meant it was time to move on and change his name and probably sleep for a couple of decades until everyone forgot him.

Including Davey.

He’d almost managed to forget about the fact that he couldn’t die. It was easy when he was living such a crazy life. Life had seemed to moving at his pace for the last decade or so. He was doing adventurous, illegal things. It was fun.

But when compliments like the ones he’d started hear came rolling in, it was time to move on.

Even if he didn’t want to. Even if he’d fallen in love for the first time in more than two thousand years of wandering around living lives that hadn’t really felt like his own. Even if this life, as Jack Kelly, with Davey Jacobs as his husband, had felt the most human he’d felt since he’d first noticed he’d stopped aging.

But he was too well known around here now, and how could he ever explain to Davey that he’d never die? That he’d been shot, had his throat cut, fought in wars and done stupid things and lived for more than two thousand years and just couldn’t die? And more than that, even if he could explain that to Davey, how could he ever bear to watch Davey get older and older and eventually die while Jack never changed?

He couldn’t.

He just couldn’t.

So it was time to move on.

“Maybe you should slow things down,” Davey whispered, brushing his fingers across the bruise on Jack’s cheek from a fight over a barrel of alcohol on the beach. “You have enough.”

“Oh, darling, I don’t need to slow things down. I’m going to live forever.” Jack smiled sadly to himself and hoped the sadness didn’t leech into his voice.

These next few days had to be normal. Completely and totally normal so nobody would suspect a thing.

So Davey laughed at what he thought was another stupid joke and kissed Jack goodnight. Jack cooked breakfast in the morning and they danced in pajamas and socks while dinner cooked. They met their friends, kept up their facade of being nothing more than bachelors who were best friends in public and went home to be the husbands they considered themselves to be.

And three days later, Jack Kelly died.

He was driving too fast down a road with too many curves with a car full of illegal alcohol and he crashed into a big tree. The car burned completely before anyone could get there. Not even a body was left, and just like that, Jack Kelly was gone.

He hadn’t picked a new last name yet, but he was planning on going somewhere to take a long, long, long nap someplace where nobody would find him until he wanted them to, so he didn’t really need one yet.

The last time he’d done this, faked his own death, he hadn’t stuck around. He’d been gone as soon as it was done.

This time, he couldn’t bear to go. He stayed until his own funeral.

He saw Davey sitting ramrod straight in the front row, his eyes red and puffy from tears. He saw Davey, the only real connection he had in the world, barely and not quite holding back tears while an empty casket was lowered into the ground.

And then he disappeared.

Found a cave, slept for what ended up being thirty-nine years, and started living pieces of lives here and there. A couple years in Detroit working in a factory. A couple years on a farm in Iowa. A couple years in San Francisco as an artist who never got very successful.

But god, was he sick of it.

Every time he slowed down for a second, he remembered the best life he’d ever lived. The one where he’d had friends and fallen in love. The one that had hurt the most to leave behind.

In two thousand years he’d never had a heartbreak that lasted this long.

Time seemed to be moving too fast, too far away from the man he loved more than anything.

He hadn’t felt this bad in at least a thousand years.

One of the best things about the current modern age, though, was the gift of sweet, sweet caffeine and an online world that moved so fast he could distract himself from his own misery.

“Venti quad one-pump no-whip mocha, please.”

He was well aware that his normal order was a bit pretentious and something many people would call a “white-girl” drink, but it tasted absolutely delicious and pumped a lot of energy very quickly through his body, so it was good enough for him.

And once he had his drink, he had his free pass to sit and use the free Wi-Fi to watch Netflix while he worked on his latest project.

In this life, he was an artist again.

He’d missed making art professionally. During the renaissance, he’d trained under the masters. Some of his artwork was still hanging around the world, admired by people who had no idea the artist was still around.

He’d downgraded significantly since then. People didn’t want somebody to live in their house and paint them religious iconography anymore.

Oh, the state of society today.

Instead, he drew comics and had a Patreon and made just enough money to get by. Not that that was really a bad thing. He had much more creative freedom when he was drawing his own content on his own time. He could tell his own story in whatever way he wanted.

And in this age, he could do with a TV show playing in the background.

He liked historical shows, partly because it was really fun to see how wrong people got it. Most of the time, very wrong. Medieval Europe had not been nearly as fun, clean, or brown as any royal drama or fun fantasy show tried to make it seen. It had been more about being so drunk you didn’t realize your friend had the plague until it was too late but that was okay because you had a really cool funky red hat that made you a foot taller.

Or maybe Jack had just had a crazy time in the 1400s and nobody had told him all this intrigue and vaguely Goth aesthetic things were happening around him.

He still missed that hat.

Ha. That was a good idea for a funny little bonus comic to post on Twitter.

He had an established immortal character and the running joke was his inability to adjust to the new times he kept finding himself in. Which was fun, because Jack had learned to chameleon into the new ages as they came a long time ago.

But it would be pretty cool to get to wear that red hat again.

By the time his drink was ready, he had it all planned out, and he was smiling to himself as he pulled out his sketchbook to start working on it.

My Funky Red Hat: a Landgrave Hitch minicomic.

Ah, Landgrave Hitch. All the worst qualities of Jack’s immortal soul forced into one simple little man who could present all the problems that Jack had with immortal life to the world without him having to say that he himself was immortal.

Though in this day and age, he doubted anyone would really care. They probably wouldn’t believe him, but if the number of theories about celebrities being immortal were any indicator, they’d just think it was cool.

He got lost in his artwork quickly, enjoying the process of outlining a silly little comic he’d have a lot of fun detailing later. So lost, in fact, that he didn’t even notice somebody sitting down across from him.

“Jack Kelly.”

The quiet voice startled him so badly that Landgrave Hitch suddenly had an angry black line through the rough outline of his head and funky red hat.

He looked up at the person who’d sat down and felt his jaw literally drop.

Almost a hundred years ago he’d looked up while at a party and seen a man so beautiful he couldn’t forget his face.

And now, somehow, impossibly, that face was sitting across from him in a Starbucks in New York City, looking slightly upset.

Well, more than slightly.

Looking a frankly disconcerting amount of angry.

And calling him Jack Kelly, which was a name he hadn’t used since the nineteen twenties. He’d been Jack Kelly for the last six years, and had cycled through a fair number of other names since he’d left Davey Jacobs behind.

And now Davey Jacobs was holding a bright pink iced drink and glaring at him in two thousand and nineteen.

“I…Davey?”

It was impossible. Davey wasn’t an immortal. Jack knew of exactly four other immortals scattered around the world. He’d met them all in different places throughout history, and all of them agreed they were the only ones in the world. None of them had met any others.

So Davey Jacobs should not still be alive, still looking like he was in his twenties, still looking like the most beautiful man in the world.

He was completely at a loss for what to do know. What was the right response to meeting somebody who thought you died a hundred years ago because you faked your own death so he wouldn’t find out you’re immortal? In a Starbucks?

“Yeah, that’s my name.”

“Davey Jacobs.”

A huge part of Jack was absolutely deliriously happy. Happier than he’d been in ninety-two years, since the last time he kissed Davey without a care in the world.

The rest of him, though, was well aware that that wasn’t the way things were any more. How could it be, so many years and so many lies and so many lives later?

“Is that all you can say?”

“I-“

“Because I certainly have plenty to say! It’s been…” Davey paused took a deep breath, obviously forcing himself to lower his voice. “It’s been ninety-two years of thinking you died a horrible death, and then you’re sitting in a Starbucks? What the hell, Jack Kelly?”

“Davey, I-“

“I’ll bet you moved from place to place and lived a crazy life every time and never even spared a second to think about me-“

“I thought about you every day! And you don’t get to be so mad at me for not telling you when you didn’t tell me either!” Jack finally managed to get words out and force them into Davey’s tirade.

And it seemed to make Davey pause, too. Which hadn’t happened often in Jack’s conversations with Davey.

“If you had told me, I would have told you!”

“And I can say the same back to you!”

Davey sat back and took an angry sip of his drink.

“You didn’t even say goodbye,” he finally said after a few minutes of silence.

“I couldn’t make myself,” Jack said quietly, staring down at his paper and watching his pencil trace slow circles around a half-finished drawing. “I didn’t want to go.”

“But you did.”

“People were starting to notice. That I didn’t change. I ran around like that for seven years and my face didn’t change a bit, and people cared about stuff like that. So I had to go. There’s…there’s a reason you’re the only person I’ve ever let myself fall for.”

Over thousands of years, that was still the truth. Davey Jacobs was the only person Jack had let himself fall in love with.

He’d had other flings. Other boyfriends and girlfriends, even. He might have even told other people that he loved them, but there was a big difference in the way he felt about Davey compared to how he felt about anybody else.

The feeling that usually settled in the pit of his stomach, the fluttery butterflies that told him he was attracted to somebody had settled and stayed firmly in his chest when it came to Davey. Like heartburn, but it didn’t hurt at all.

It was, and always had been, a wonderful, wonderful feeling.

Even now.

After almost a hundred years, even when Davey looked mad and honestly that was more than fair, Jack looked at him and felt like his heart was trying to escape his chest with how wonderful it was to see him again.

Davey wouldn’t meet his eyes, now. He was staring down at his hands, splayed out on the table. Occasionally, he took another sip of his drink.

“I was terrified of falling in love with you, Jack,” he said quietly after a long, painful silence. “I convinced myself that when it came down to it, I’d tell you. I’d let you choose if you wanted to keep seeing somebody who would outlive you. And then you died, Jack, and I thought that would be what killed me. I felt guilty for not telling you, I was heartbroken, and I couldn’t even tell anybody why it hurt so bad because one of those things nobody could know and one of them only a couple people could possibly understand. And then I spent years, Jack, decades, trying to get over you and halfway wishing it never happened but how could I wish that when I loved you? And now you’re just…here. Drawing like nothing’s changed at all, with the same look on your face like you always do when you’re lost in your own head….and it hurts, Jack.” Davey shook his head, still looking down. “It hurts to know that I felt that broken for nothing, and that you’ve been out here this whole time when I’ve felt so alone, and that I could have told you and you could have told me and it would have changed everything and nothing at the same time.”

God, he still talked like he always had, like the words had been made up to fall from his lips and he was going to write the entire universe into a book and every eloquent phrase fit together perfectly.

And God, Jack was still so, so in love with him, and felt so, so guilty for all the same reasons Davey had just listed off.

“If both of us feel guilty does the guilt cancel out?” he asked out loud without meaning to, and instantly flushed and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Of all the stupid things he could have said, that was probably one of the dumbest. Not worst, just plain stupid.

A thought that should have stayed inside his head out of sheer stupidity.

To his surprise, Davey burst into laughter. Real laughter, not sarcastic or mean or forced, real, genuine laughter.

“You haven’t changed at all, Jack. Not at all.” He said when his laughter finally died down, at least a couple minutes later.

“I’ve spent a couple thousand years designing this personality, Davey. Why should I change?” Jack said, a little bit sadly but also happy to have made him laugh like that.

“I…thousands of years? How old are you?”

“I dunno.” Jack ran his fingers through his hair, suddenly self-conscious. “I was a farmer in the Greek empire. Realized I couldn’t die during the fall, when the war came. So…a couple thousand years, right? How old are you?”

“I was born in 1804. So like two hundred fifteen. Not over two thousand, Christ, Jack.” Davey shook his head, and besides what they were talking about, it felt like the conversations they used to have.

“Oh. I kind of assumed all of us were from longer ago than that.”

“All of us?”

“There’s four others that I know of. Spot, he’s Roman and a huge asshole but you get used to him. And Race, who we found in the Italian Renaissance, but he was from the Roman Empire, too. Spot and Race are in love but too stubborn to admit it so they’re rivals, which is good, since before Race came along Spot actively chose to antagonize me whenever he could. Um…Romeo, he’s the most modern I know. ‘Cept you, I guess, he was Shakespeare’s boyfriend and the actual inspiration for, you know, Romeo. Like Romeo and Juliet Romeo. And Medda. I have no idea when she’s from, but she kind of adopted all of us, I guess.”

“I don’t know any of them,” Davey said, frowning. “I thought I was alone.”

“You haven’t been around so long as we have. Even Romeo’s like twice your age.” Jack grinned. “You might as well be a kid.”

“I’m physically around your age, I think. I’m pretty sure I stopped aging when I was twenty-five.”

“I was old for my time, man.”

“So what, like nineteen?”

Jack laughed, now, suddenly feeling comfortable again.

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad. Plenty of people lived to be like seventy, I think. Just not farmers. Pretty sure I was around twenty-seven, twenty-eight when the collapse started, and I think that when it happened.”

“What did you do when you noticed?”

“The Romans decided I was Apollo come down to Earth. Painted me, sculpted me, it was pretty sick for a while. Then I got bored, fucked off and took a three hundred year nap, woke up to Spot kicking me and the Romans gone. Then I just started floating. Here and there, bits and pieces of lives I wanted to try, never in one place long.”

“I’m guessing that comic you’re sketching is based in reality?” Davey’s eyes were sparkling and it was like he’d completely forgotten how mad he was five minutes ago. Jack laughed and spun his sketchbook around for him to see better.

“I have no idea what was happening during the fourteen hundreds but God do I miss that funky red hat.”

“You would miss a hat without knowing the history you lived through.”

“Hey. I’ve lived through a lot, can’t expect me to remember everything.”

“I guess not.”

Davey was quiet again for a while, but this time it didn’t feel quite so painful. It was more comfortable, like he’d at least kind of gotten over his anger and was just having a normal conversation with Jack.

“Davey?” Jack finally said.

“Mmhmm?”

“Can we…I mean…I’m sorry.”

Probably should have organized his thoughts before he opened his mouth.

“If we both feel guilty, I guess it cancels out. We both made the same mistakes.”

“You didn’t fake your death or break my heart. I did that to myself.”

“Well…I never would have been brave enough to actually tell you. So I probably would have. Or just left without explanation, which would have been bad, too.”

“I guess. I’m still sorry.” Jack sipped at his drink, studying the table.

He wanted things to go back to how they were when Jack was Jack Kelly the bootlegger and Davey was Davey Jacobs the author and they were in love and happy and carefree. When they’d danced to jazz records and kissed in the moonlight and called each other sweet names and called themselves married.

He wasn’t sure that was possible, but that was what he wanted.

“Why don’t you buy me a coffee to make up for it?” Davey said, and he put his hand on top of Jack’s on the table and Jack felt himself practically short circuit.

He realized, quite suddenly, that he was pretty sure he hadn’t had any kind of actual physical romantic human contact in the ninety-two years since he left Davey. He hadn’t felt like he could handle it when he was still so ridiculously gone on Davey.

“I think I owe you more than one coffee to make up for that.”

“You own me ninety-two coffees.” Davey squeezed his hand. “I’m mad, Jack, but like…I get it. I did the same thing, and I refuse to still be hung up on you when you’re right here.”

“Oh yeah?” Jack grinned again, studying Davey’s face.

“Yeah. I’m still stupidly in love with you, Jack Kelly.”

“Right back ‘atcha, Davey.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And it felt like that party when Jack saw Davey standing at the docks, silhouetted in the light. Or the first time they kissed.

Just an explosion of butterflies firmly lodged in his chest and blooming happiness filling his entire body.

It obviously wasn’t back to how it had been instantly.

Things were, like Davey had said, so different even in how similar everything was. They were still Jack and Davey, they obviously still loved each other, but things were different. There was trust to be rebuilt, and so many new things to learn about each other.

But Davey kissed Jack goodbye, and held his hand as they walked together in Central Park, and laughed at his stupid jokes and watched him draw, and those things felt like how everything had felt before. And Davey fell asleep on Jack’s couch with his head on Jack’s shoulder and it felt perfect.

Things were different, but honestly, that was okay. It felt nice. Wonderful.

And that feeling stayed lodged in Jack’s chest like it wouldn’t ever go away.

And mornings were, once again, spent cooking breakfast in his socks and pajama bottoms while Davey slept in.

“Morning, love.” Davey hugged Jack from behind and kissed him on the top of the head.

“Morning, darling.” Jack leaned back into the touch, smiling.

Two thousand years and he’d never felt like this for anyone before, and now he was lucky enough to have this forever? For as long as he’d live, which seemed like it would be forever.

Mm.

If it was possible to have a perfect immortal life, this might just be it. Even if it had taken two thousand years and ninety-two of heartbreak to get here.

Work to build trust, and fix what had ended up broken the first time, but that had been fixed up again.

Maybe this time around, they’d really get married.

Or maybe not.

Maybe they’d call each other husband and kiss in the moonlight and dance to jazz in their socks in the kitchen while dinner was cooking and be in love for the rest of eternity and that would be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> hey hey hey I'm Asper and like usual it is 1:38 in the morning as I post this so oops at least it's summer break now yeet
> 
> Please leave a comment with absolutely anything this made you feel good or bad yes I am begging and no I am not ashamed of it.
> 
> Come hang out @graybeard-halt on Tumblr, we have a good gay time over there!


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